


absolutely trying my best

by EasyPeasyPanic



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:00:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22093744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EasyPeasyPanic/pseuds/EasyPeasyPanic
Summary: "He's wearing a Konoha Girls Gone Wild t-shirt, Mrs. Namikaze. It isn't even his size! You used a hair bow to keep it off his knees!""It's his grandmother's. It's an heirloom. Disrespectful."___In which we meet Namikaze Minato's mother and watch her try her absolute BEST at being on time and being a good parent.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 47
Collections: why im sleep deprived 💖✨





	absolutely trying my best

* * *

"I want you to know this is _highly_ inappropriate." 

Nagisa pursed her lips, " _Is_ it really, though?"

The Academy teacher raised a singular, well-groomed eyebrow at her. If Nagisa had the time and the attention span to check the dictionary, she's sure this particular teacher's picture is sitting there next to _'Unimpressed_ '. 

The definition of the word? Teacher-san's not putting up with any of her excuses after she's told them a dozen times. (And in the entire three months that school's been in session, she's only used them about...maybe 24 times? Maybe? _Hopefully_?)

"Am I really going to have to explain this to you?" The woman says slowly, pronouncing each syllable separately and with _some nerve_ . There were people in Sunagakure that _feared_ Namikaze Nagisa. Not even the usual, _OH WOW SHE'S IN THE BINGO BOOK, LOOK OUT-_ kind of fear. 

No, when people in Sunagakure saw her, they actually ran away. They turned around and left, not even ready to deal with her. She was _the_ Namikaze Nagisa They saw her and thought, _Oh my Sage, it's the BLUE-EYED DEVIL OF THE LEAF, we gotta go. Hide ya genin, hide ya summons, Namikaze Nagisa is gettin' everybody up in this desert. Move it or lose it, people._

"Mrs. Namikaze." Teacher-Lady grimances, shaking her head. "Your son is currently wearing two different sandals and no pants." 

Nagisa does a double take. She swears to _Kami_ that she put some pants on her son this morning, hadn't she? She swings around to face her sleepy boy, and _sighs_ in relief. He might be wearing two different colored sandals (not that it matters since they're _both blue_ , right, just different shades), but those were definitely pants on him. Pajama pants, sure, but pants. _HA!_

"Those are pants." Nagisa brags, if that's even something to brag about. "What kind of teacher doesn't know what _pants_ are?" She asks smugly, but recoils immediately when the woman straightened her back up.

"It was a test, Mrs. Namikaze!" She cries out, hand against her forehead. "You weren't even sure! Look at him! Does that seem anywhere close to ready for class?"

Minato's golden hair wasn't exactly tidy, but it had been brushed. It had grown out uneven and longer in some places since she cut it, but Nagisa still thought he looked _okay_ . And yes, those were bright yellow pajama pants with cute little shuriken designs, but you know what? Sometimes being a ninja is about _comfort_ . Maybe Nagisa wouldn't have quit the Assassination Unit if they'd let her wear her comfy clothes at work, so there's _that_.

(And also if she didn't have to perform so many assassinations. Even if she was good at it, she didn't _want_ to do it, like, every day.)

"Okay, maybe the pajama bottoms weren't the best choice." 

"He's wearing a _Konoha Girls Gone Wild_ t-shirt, Mrs. Namikaze. It isn't even his size! You used a hair bow to keep it off his knees!"

"It's his _grandmother's_. It's an heirloom. Disrespectful." 

Teacher-Lady huffed, "He has a piece of raw bread hanging out of his mouth and a lighter in his hand. What is that even _for_?"

"So he can make his own toast? We were in a hurry! He doesn't know any Katon yet, and he never will if we keep having this discussion."

This really isn't fair. Minato isn't even that late today! Not as much as he has been before! And yet here Nagisa is, being stared down by the equivalent of a tall, angry toddler. Teacher-Lady can't be more than maybe 5'0? Maybe less? Nagisa isn't even tall, but she actually has to stare down at the teacher's flared nostrils and thin, narrowed eyes. They're only twenty three minutes late. Really, what even is twenty three minutes? That's not even enough time to get from the Hokage Tower to the Shopping District, or to even watch half of a radio program if you considered all the breaks for advertisements. 

Nagisa bows her head, "Look, I'm sorry." She murmurs, feeling her cheeks heat and flush. "And I'm really sorry that I have to end our conversation _early_ , but I need to go _now_. I'm late for work." She leans down, planting a kiss on Minato's head. "I love you. I'll see you later." 

"Love you too." Minato replies. 

Nagisa forms a hand seal. 

"Now wait just a minute! Mrs. Namikaze, this is highly--"

And she's gone. 

**_____ **

She's barely tied the thick rubber apron around herself when she hears a cheerful laugh from behind her. 

"Ha, really, Namikaze?" Yamanaka Sen cackles from his place by her desk, leaning across it like he owns the place. Nagisa frowns, arranging her scalpels and _trying_ so hard not to bash his smug, little perfectly tanned face in. "Late _again_?" 

"Yes." Nagisa hisses. "Late again."

She yanked her long, golden-blonde hair out of her face and into a messy ponytail, trying desperately to preserve the rest of her day after the fiasco at Minato's school. 

"And what's your excuse _this_ time?" 

Nagisa cocks her head to the side, thinking. "Hmm." She drawls out. "You know what, I don't think I have one? Why? Because you aren't my boss, and I don't have to tell you anything." 

The slab of metal in front of her was covered by a thin, dark blue sheet. It was a better color than the usual, almost see-through white that was provided by the government of Konoha, probably on discount by the merchants in the market district. 

"You wound me, Nagisa-chan." Sen replies sweetly, already opening up a glove for her to shove her hand into. She does, basically punching her hand in, and he puts the other one on too. "I'd like to say that we're equals."

"Not _really_." Nagisa shrugs, getting her shoulders loosened and comfortable. "I'm the head of my division on the Analysis team. And you're what? Maybe fifth in charge if everyone else dies. And that's only if you're lucky because if all of them are dead, I'm sure you are too." 

Sen scoffs, "Namikaze, you're in charge of cutting up dead people--"

"Autopsies." 

"--which isn't really anything, is it?" 

She pulls the sheet neatly across the body, frowning down at it. Nagisa wasn't particularly bothered by death, not anymore, especially not after having this job for so long, but it never felt right when she _first_ saw the body to cut into it. It felt like a major invasion of privacy, like a personal offence to the spirit, and maybe _that's_ why she's always late to, basically, everywhere. Maybe she's being haunted. 

"Look, Sen, are you my scribe today or not?" 

"Sure, sure." Sen makes a point of picking up a clipboard off her desk, waving it around. He pulls a pen from his small bun, and she sighed in irritation. "You know I am, let's get started, eh?"

Nagisa sets aside the sheet, examining the body laying across the cold metal table. She takes a step back, frowning. "This is the autopsy of an unidentified male found at the border last night. Performing the autopsy will be myself, Namikaze Nagisa. The male is in his late teens, early twenties." 

"Appears to be."

Nagisa frowns beneath her mask, "Yes, Sen, he _appears_ to be in his late teens, early twenties. Skin appears to be in usual state for a shinobi. Minimal scarring across torso and hands, but nothing distinctive. Hair, red. Eyes are cloudy and grey, indicating he's been dead for a few days before we found him."

"Huh-- hmm, you don't think he's an Uzumaki, do you?" 

"Maybe? I don't know. Is Cryptanalysis Team finished decoding the scroll he had on him?" 

Sen shrugs, "Last I heard, no, but that was about two hours ago when I went to get a cup of tea in the breakroom." He peers over her shoulder, finishing writing her last few evaluations. "He was headed from that direction though."

"He has a cut on his upper left thigh, below his hip bone. Not very deep, but definately fresh. Huh, do you know how much that sucks? To die because of a freaking little cut?" 

Sen snorts loudly, scribbling away. Nagisa frowns at the wound, at the purple tint to it, and at the dried blood. She turns to make sure he marks it down on the paper. 

"Nails are clean." Nagisa reports. "Tongue's been-- huh, looks like he bit it. There are bloody teeth marks there. Makes me wonder…"

"Gotta cut him open. See what's happening inside. Wish I could do the same to you." 

Nagisa _chokes_ , "Excuse me, you crazy ass!"

"I meant, like emotions! Like what you're feeling inside!" Sen points his pen at her accusingly. "You never tell me anything. We've worked together for three years, and I don't know anything about you. I don't even know how old you are!"

"Because you don't _need_ to know." Nagisa huffed. She grabbed onto her knife, preparing to make the Y-Incision, but Sen's staring at her face stopped her. God, Yamanakas were the worst! It was bad enough they had a kekkei genkai that let them dance around in your head with their fancy hairdos and high self-esteem, but they always wanted to be in your business. "Ugh, stop looking at me like you're trying to dissect me when I'm dissecting someone. It's disrespectful." 

"C'mon, just tell me how old you are." 

"Twenty-five." 

"Wait, isn't your kid, like, seven? So what, you were eighteen?"

"Yeah." Nagisa stabbed in a little too hard, but it's not like the guy could feel it, right? "Look, there was a war going on. We didn't know when it would end. So we decided to get married all quick like and maybe pop out a kid or two-- look, to be honest, I was pretty sure I was going to die way before we ever started reproducing. Unfortunately, I lived, but my husband didn't. And I already had a bun in the oven when the war ended. Anything else you need to know?" 

Sen _laughs_ . Like actually laughs at her story as if it were the funniest thing in the entire world, but it wasn't. She married Namikaze Takumi out of a mixture of teenage hormones, desperation for adulthood, and because her friend Haruka said she wouldn't do it. It made sense to her at the time, to die knowing she was loved and she got a taste of being an adult with a marriage and talk of kids. Until her husband, until Umi-kun (her Academy sweetheart, her favorite genin teammate, her closest _everything_ ) didn't come back from a mission and suddenly she was alone.

A bride at seventeen, a widow at eighteen, and a single mother at nineteen. Not that Minato was any trouble at all, no he was _amazing_. Beyond amazing. 

He looked exactly like her, all big, blue eyes and golden hair, her face shape and her smile. Takumi was pale, with light blue eyes and soft brown hair, so unlike his son. It was like she had managed to take all of her better features and shove them into his face, but left enough room on the inside for him to inherit his father's personality. Minato's brilliant for his age, a natural prodigy in all the ways that Nagisa failed as a student, and he's calm. Collected. Playful, but shrewd too. He's every bit of Takumi's son. 

But it doesn't matter. Not when Nagisa constantly fails as a mother time and time again. Too tired from work in the Analysis division and running internal missions for the Sandaime, too unorganized to have housework and laundry done, always running behind and making Minato late. She's constantly _trying_ to be a better mother and failing at it tremendously. 

How do the other women do it? Is it because they have husbands? She can't imagine Takumi doing dishes or washing laundry, but maybe he could get Minato to school on time. He could make sure that Minato was wearing an appropriate outfit and had a decent breakfast. Or at least make sure Nagisa woke up on time, or didn't have to work so many hours to pay the bills. 

She shouldn't have rushed into motherhood. She shouldn't make Minato eat uncooked toast for breakfast or pack him uncooked ramen for his lunch. The other kids, the clan kids, all had fancy bento boxes and home cooked meals. Kami, she wasn't even sure she was a good cook or not. She didn't do it enough. 

Nagisa lets out a deep sigh. 

"When I finish this autopsy, I'm going home." She tells her Yamanaka companion. He isn't really above her, not really, but it was easier to tell him to give her an excused absence. She couldn't technically leave without secondary permission, and Sen was high ranked enough to provide it. 

"Told me too much?" Sen teases. "Gotta go rest, might faint from oversharing." 

"I'm serious." 

"So am I. I'll write it out. Let's finish this. How's his organs looking?" 

Nagisa sighed, "Alright, upon initial examination…"

**_____ **

Somehow, _somehow_ , she's actually late for leaving early. It takes too long to finish examining the body, and all it came out to be poison from the cut. It attacked his nervous system, caused a fatal seizure that explained the tongue being bitten, and the lack of bruises.

Nagisa barely makes it on time to pick Minato when the Academy released for the day. She's on time, just barely, just enough to watch as her son's escorted out by Teacher-Lady. He gives his teacher a polite bow, his bright blue eyes searching until they reach Nagisa, and she waves happily. Minato darts to her, slipping his hand into hers, and she squeezes tightly. 

"What happened to your clothes?" 

Minato _blushed_ , bright red. "Himari-sensei let me change into some of the training gear from the storage room." He blinked down at his plain black shirt and baggy black trousers. "I-- I didn't want to be seen in Grandma's shirt." 

Nagisa _laughs_ , "Oh, Mina, it wasn't her shirt. It was mine, I got it from a festival as a joke from your Papa." And wasn't it a tasteful gift? _Konoha Girls Gone Wild_ , just to make her jealous. But Takumi was like that, knowing exactly where to poke and prod at her temper and embarrasment. "We're going to stop by the store before we go home, alright?"

Her seven year old stares at her for a long moment, as if he were picking her apart and putting her back together. He's too smart for his own good, that boy. Usually, she can just send him off for groceries by the corner store, but they're actually going to a market today and she's going to have to go.

"What do we need?" Minato asks quietly. 

"Bento box. One of those washable ones." Nagisa replies evenly. "Laundry soap. Dish soap. Ooh, we'll need to stop by a barber, too. Let them fix the mess on your head. You look like you have long sideburns." 

"They're _bangs_ , Mom." Minato defends, holding onto his head like Nagisa was going to snatch the hair right off his head. "And I like it longer that way. You cut it this way." 

Nagisa's eyes softened, overwhelmed by his words. He _liked_ her crappy hair cutting skills? Wow, he really was Takumi's son. He hadn't minded anything she did either. 

(And he really probably should have.)

"We'll need vegetables, too." 

Minato's blonde eyebrows rise so high, she thinks she might have to smack them right back down. _Seriously? Vegetables are that surprising? Ugh. What a shitty mother…_

"We _never_ eat vegetables." 

Nagisa rolled her eyes, "I'm aware, Mina." 

"Never." 

"I _know_." 

"So why now?" 

"I'm on a self-improvement kick!" Nagisa exclaimed. "Trying to be a better mother! One that you actually deserve." 

Minato keeps staring, eyes widening. His mouth drops open, his cheeks flush, and he doesn't say anything. A smile spreads on his cheeks. 

"I think you're a really good mom." He says quietly. "Everyday's different." 

"Yeah, yeah." Nagisa waved him off. "But now it'll be a good different." 

**_____ **

"Mom." Minato calls into the smoke. "I called the fire containment unit." 

Nagisa _chokes_ , stumbling out of the mess that _was_ her kitchen, waving a dish towel around madly as she basically suffocated to death. 

"We…" She wheezed. "Don't need the...fire brigade. For some miso soup." 

Minato's all smiles, "Miso soup you set on fire." He has their houseplant (which was his responsibility which is probably why it's alive) and their _to-go bag_ in his arms, the responsible little tyke. He offers her his hand, as if he needed to lead hee out of the apartment, and Nagisa lets out a _cough_ that she swore she saw flames come from. 

_Are you kidding me?_

Nagisa buries her burning eyes into Minato's bright hair, bemoaning her fate. Even her apron hadn't come out uncharred. More smoke blew out of their kitchen, black and thick and--

_HOW DOES MISO SOUP BURN THIS MUCH?_

Nagisa groans loudly, her eyes stinging from her time in the kitchen trying to put _out_ the flames. Her eyes stung, watering with fresh tears, and she sniffled to keep her nose from running. She smelled like burnt...burn? Just burnt in general. 

"I am a jonin!" Nagisa cries out, hysterical. "I'm Head of the Autopsy Division in the Analysis team. I'm a _Jonin_! I can cook miso soup!"

"I told you not to put oil in the pan." 

"Mina-kun, oil isn't flammable!"

Minato stares at her with hard eyes and pursed lips. " _Mom_." 

"I'm trying my best!" Nagisa insisted, ignoring the way something _popped_ and crackled from inside their burning kitchen. 

_"_ Maybe you could buy already prepared lunches?" Minato offers diplomatically as the shouting of the fire brigade sounded through the building, all low ranked shinobi with skills in Water Style. 

"Or maybe we can try making sushi." Nagisa looks at the fading smoke and the glow of the flames longing. "Guess I could always go take a nap in the fire and put myself out of my misery." 

"Yeah, or that." Minato agrees.

**_____ **

"Hey, Namikaze!"

Nagisa kept her gaze straight ahead, pushing past two unfortunate chunin that happened to be in her way. Her heeled sandals _clicked_ with furious vigor, and she hurried faster towards the safety of her office. She fumbled for her keys. Sandal slaps follow behind her. 

"Nagisa, c'mon I know you hear me! I have a question."

So close yet so far. 

"Nagi! Why'd you cut your hair? And why do you smell like fire?"

Nagisa whirls around to look Sen directly in the eyes. "None of your business."

Sen's cackling followed her down the hall. "Y'know my cousin's part of the fire brigade! Heard about how your hair spontaneously combusited right after they put out the stove fire!"

Nagisa slammed her office door in his face. 

**_____ **

After Minato's seventh call to the Fire Containment Unit in a month, they give him a punch card for free BBQ if he manages to call for five more fires. 

(He does.)

A shiny new fire extinguisher sits on their front door step after school one day with a note from the Fire Captain. 

_Mrs. Namikaze,_

_Kindly stop making this a habit or we'll stop coming. Try this next time._

_-Fire Captain Todoroki_

**_____ **

(Self Improvement Attempt #49: Window-Usage)

Okay so now when she's late to take Minato to school, Nagisa doesn't embarrass herself by walking him inside and getting scolded by a teacher. Oh no, she isn't some civilian mom. Now she simply walks up the wall of the Academy, opens the window, and throws Minato inside. 

Which still isn't, like, _great_ , but at least Minato isn't late nearly as much anymore. And she doesn't get yelled at by Teacher-Lady, which is an added bonus. But in her defense, Minato goes to school appropriately dressed, his hair combed neatly, and he always has a bento packed instead of ramen cups. So, little by little, Namikaze Nagisa has managed to pull herself out of the gutter enough to get her son's like on track. 

He's an extraordinary boy. He's going to be a great ninja, she imagines. So really, all she needs to do is support him.

Which is why she shoved him through the window this morning, narrowly missing being hit by a kunai from the irritated, tiny Academy teacher. Only five minutes late, mind you! Because she supports his education. And all that. 

So then she dead _sprints_ across Konohagakure, stuffing her _DUE TODAY_ paperwork into her shirt so it didn't blow away as she scrambled to grasp onto tree limbs and climb rooftops to _try_ to get there faster. The key word here is try. Because for all her running and shoving, and that one old _granny_ with her cart of apples she drop kicked out of the way, it doesn't help the fact that she's late to work. Again. 

Nagisa trudges into the breakroom, _defeated_. 

"Oi!" 

"...fuck." 

Yamanaka Sen smiles at her proudly. His hair is twisted into braids that pull up into twin buns, and she _sighs_ at the sight of it. 

"Nagisa-chan!" Sen says cheerfully. "You look beautiful today. Do you always wear a pink yukata?" 

"Everyday." 

"Oh." 

Sen grins, wiggling his eyesbrows. "I can't fucking believe you're on time today-- why are there wadded up pieces of paper in your dress? Is that like a bigger boob thing or--"

"What did you say?" 

"About the paper? Because they have surgeries that work just as well." Sen cocks his head to the side, making _big boobies_ motions through the air as if he had a chest. 

"...no the other thing." 

"Oh!" His fist hit his palm. "You being on time?"

Nagisa stares at him for a moment. Her mind _reels_. Her ocean blue eyes turned slowly to the clock above the small plug in stove with the dented tea kettle. It was eight o'clock. Exactly. 

She was on time. 

Oh Kami, oh thank the Sage, oh by the--

It had all led up to this moment. This pinnacle of nirvana. This crowning achievement, this moment of personal victory. All the unforgivably burned meals and the times Minato had to call the fire containment unit to their apartment, all the failed laundry loads where things turned pink, all the bent chopsticks and overstuffed bentos and a single carrot stuffed in Minato's mouth. All the poor grannies that Nagisa had to kick to get them _out of the fucking way._ She was on time for work. 

Holy Sage, she was on _TIME._

"Uh, Nagi? You okay?" 

Nagisa nods, fighting back an onslaught of happy tears. "I'm on _time_." She whispered, still in shock. "I'm on time!"

Sen grabs her hands, and she _lets_ him. Doesn't even knock him out or anything. And they dance around the room, hopping and sliding, gleeful. 

"A first for everything!" Sen cries out. "Maybe I should try the gambling house tonight."

Nagisa giggles, "Maybe _I_ should try the gambling house tonight."

**_____ **

Minato holds her hand when he leaves the Academy. They're nearly halfway home when he finally speaks.

"Mom?" 

"Hm?" Nagisa turns to her son, blinking down at him. "What's wrong, Mina?" 

"I want to be Hokage. I want to be respected by all of the villagers." 

Nagisa thinks it over and _smiles_ down at him, ruffling his thick blond mess of a hairdo. 

"Oh, do you?" 

"Do you think that's a good dream?"

"That's a wonderful goal. Dreams are dreams, you can wake up from them. But a goal? That's bound to happen. And I think you'll be a wonderful Hokage." Nagisa corrects, stopping in the middle of the street. She bends down to his level, looking him in the eyes. All that stares back at her is Namikaze Takumi, all of his hopes and ambitions. Their first meeting, how Takumi stood up from his desk when asked for his future goals and declared his intent to be Hokage. It was good that Minato inherited the better pieces of Takumi rather than herself. 

"Thanks, Mom." Minato's face twists into something else, and if she were anyone else, she might have thought he was constipated. Nagisa flicks her son's forehead. 

"What is it?"

"Why did you decide to become a member of the Analysis team? Was that your dream?"

 _No, but it was the only job available and I needed baby diapers and teething rings._ But Nagisa doesn't tell him that, just like she doesn't admit how pointless her life really had been before she had him. How she didn't really have dreams or goals before he was born, because she was too focused on _surviving_ the war to think about what would happen after it. 

She doesn't tell him that he's her goal. That he's been her goal for the past seven years. That she just wants to be a good mother and raise a strong, healthy boy. 

"Yeah." Nagisa tells him, standing up. "It was my goal in life, and I achieved it." 

Minato's smiling again, his eyes closed. "Good." He says softly. "We're both going to have achieved our goals." 

_When you become Hokage, I'll have achieved mine. For you to be the best you can be._

Nagisa pinches his cheek, "So who was that red-haired girl I saw you looking at when you were being dismissed, hm? She was pretty." 

Minato's face turned bright red and he stammered. He snatched his hand away from her, waving his hands desperately to get to shut up. 

"M-Mom!"

"Let me guess, an Uzumaki? Aww, Mina, do you have a crush? Invite her over! I'll cook dinner! No fires, I swear. Ooh, I bet you two would make cute babies. Have a boy for Mommy, I want a grandson--" 

"MOM."

* * *


End file.
